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Genetic tools that enable cell type-specific delivery hold promise for combating incurable neurologic diseases

Novel tools and methods for delivering therapeutic genes to cells in the central nervous system hold great promise for the development of new treatments to combat incurable neurologic diseases. Five of the most exciting developments in this rapidly advancing field are presented in a series of articles in the June issue of Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc..

29 Jun 2011

454 Life Sciences launches new GS FLX+ System for high-throughput sequencing

454 Life Sciences, a Roche Company, announced today the launch and immediate availability of the new GS FLX+ System, an instrument capable of generating extra-long sequencing reads up to 1,000 by in length.

28 Jun 2011

Inefficiency of activation-induced deoxycytidine deaminase is good for the immune system

Why is antibody diversity important? Think about it like this, said Myron Goodman, who is an author on the paper: "Why don't you die when I sneeze? It's because you have a powerful immune system. And the way to get a decent immune system is for your body to have a way to respond to insults it has never seen before."

28 Jun 2011

Scientists discover origin of Barrett's esophagus

Dr Frank McKeon, Senior Group Leader of the Stem Cell and Developmental Biology at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore, and Principal Investigator Dr Wa Xian at A*STAR's Institute of Medical Biology, together with their counterparts from the Harvard Medical School, the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and the National University of Singapore, have made the striking finding that Barrett's esophagus work, published online in the journal Cell on 24 June 2011, is essential to developing therapeutics for esophageal cancer.

28 Jun 2011

Scientists identify central switch responsible for epilepsy

UC Irvine and French researchers have identified a central switch responsible for the transformation of healthy brain cells into epileptic ones, opening the way to both treat and prevent temporal lobe epilepsy.

28 Jun 2011

Lean gene and heart disease risk

According to a new study published Sunday, being lean may not always lead to a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes. The researchers have successfully identified a gene linked both to having a lean body and to a higher risk of metabolic diseases.

27 Jun 2011

Researchers demonstrate how Runx3 protein could suppress breast cancer tumor growth

Researchers have identified a protein long known to regulate gene expression as a potent suppressor of breast cancer growth. Their study, in the journal Oncogene, is the first to demonstrate how this protein, known as Runx3, accomplishes this feat.

27 Jun 2011

Chaos in biochemical alterations of cancer cells

Using the latest gene sequencing tools to examine so-called epigenetic influences on the DNA makeup of colon cancer, a Johns Hopkins team says its results suggest cancer treatment might eventually be more tolerable and successful if therapies could focus on helping cancer cells get back to normal in addition to strategies for killing them.

27 Jun 2011

Prostate cancer therapy may benefit patients with oestrogen-negative breast cancer

CANCER RESEARCH UK Cancer Research UK scientists have discovered why a sub group of oestrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer patients could benefit from prostate cancer treatments which target the cell's androgen receptor - a key driver of prostate cancer, according to research published in The EMBO Journal today.

27 Jun 2011

New guide indicates when and how genetic testing is useful for inherited cardiac conditions

While genetic inheritance is known to play a role in the multifactorial development of most diseases of the heart, there are also a number of clearly diagnosed cardiac conditions which owe their development to quite specific genetic abnormalities. When these genetic disorders affect the integrity of the heart's muscle they are known as a "cardiomyopathy"; when the disorder affects the heart's "excitability", it is known as a "channelopathy".

27 Jun 2011

Less body fat may increase risk of metabolic diseases

Having a lower percentage of body fat may not always lower your risk for heart disease and diabetes, according to a study by an international consortium of investigators, including two scientists from the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School (HMS).

27 Jun 2011

23andMe study discovers two novel gentic associations with Parkinson's

Today 23andMe, an industry leader in personal genetics, announced the discovery of two significant, novel genetic associations with Parkinson's disease (PD) and provided new evidence that there is a substantial genetic component remaining to be discovered for Parkinson's.

27 Jun 2011

McMaster researchers to use tiny worms for Parkinson's project

McMaster researchers from three disciplines are deploying thousands of tiny worms and a homegrown invention to test drugs in a collaborative bid to defeat Parkinson's Disease.

27 Jun 2011

ACS to honor Brookhaven Lab's senior chemist for brain research

Joanna Fowler, a senior chemist and director of radiotracer chemistry, instrumentation, and biological imaging at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, is one of 23 women from around the world who has been chosen to receive a Distinguished Women in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering Award, sponsored by the American Chemical Society (ACS).

27 Jun 2011

Scientists gain insight into how brains process memory and sense of orientation

How do our brains process memory and sense of orientation? Scientists are gaining insight by studying rats with implanted genes that prompt neurons to fire on command.

24 Jun 2011

Bodies resist weight loss efforts when food intake is reduced drastically

If you've been trying to lose weight and suspect your body's working against you, you may be right, according to a University of Illinois study published in Obesity.

24 Jun 2011

Epilepsy may arise from complex mixture of altered ion channels

Imagine two flat screen televisions tuned to the same channel and sitting side-by-side. From a distance, their pictures are virtually the same, however up close, you can see subtle variations in the pixels - one blurred here, another dropped out there.

24 Jun 2011

Maize-derived collagen has proline hydroxylation levels similar to human collagen

Synthetic collagen has a wide range of applications in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery and in the food industry. For proper function in animals a certain number of prolines within the protein need to be hydroxylated. BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Biotechnology reports that for the first time the α1 chain of type 1 collagen has been produced in maize with similar levels of proline hydroxylation to human collagen.

24 Jun 2011

Stresses can change gene expression without DNA sequence change

None of us are strangers to stress of various kinds. It turns out the effects of all those stresses can change the fate of future generation, influencing our very DNA without any change to the underlying sequence of As, Gs, Ts and Cs. Now, researchers reporting in the June 24th issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication, have new evidence that helps to explain just how these epigenetic changes really happen.

24 Jun 2011

RIKEN researchers reveal mechanism for stress-induced epigenetic change

Researchers at RIKEN have uncovered a mechanism by which the effects of stress in the fly species Drosophila are inherited epigenetically over many generations through changes to the structure of chromatin, the material that makes up the cell nucleus.

24 Jun 2011